I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills" is the tenth episode in the second season of The Venture Bros. Plot The Monarch raids what he thinks is a secret Venture compound, only to find out that what he has nearly destroyed is his own accountant's office. Before leaving, however, he has his henchmen steal office supplies and the security tape (in order to post the video of his "minty fresh" entrance on his homepage by the next morning). At the real Venture compound, as Dr. Orpheus pets his cat Simba, he is interrupted by an angry Dr. Venture, who complains of an Oni hanging above his head after a recent trip to Japan. He is relieved to know that Dr. Orpheus can also see the Oni, since Brock was convinced it was merely a side effect of Dr. Venture's "diet pills". Orpheus's initial attempts to exorcise the demon fail, and the Oni angrily pulls Venture about Orpheus's den. After a quick visit to the underworld to check with his master for advice (who is now a horse and readying himself to re-enact the supposed bestiality incident of Catherine the Great with the help of his multi-faced assistant, Ms. Manyface in an attempt to teach Orpheus a lesson about "biting off more than you can chew") Dr. Orpheus tells Venture that the two are bonded and that perhaps he has a certain unfinished business to make up for. Meanwhile, Hank and Dean are practicing driving near the compound's hangar when they come across a broken-down car and a mysterious, apparently unconscious, woman nearby. When the boys get close to her, she suddenly sprays them with something, knocking them both out. #21 and #24 have, in the meantime, convened a meeting of The Monarch and henchmen to figure out why their last outing failed. While they have decided it was a failure in weaponry and are attempting to unveil their new great weapon (ped-blades, blades attached to their feet) The Monarch yells that it was bad planning. Suddenly a mysterious stranger begins to speak from the back of the meeting, agreeing with The Monarch, who immediately makes him his new "number two". The new number two, Dr. Henry Killinger, begins to implement a number of new reforms to the Cocoon to turn around their spectacular failures, making sure to take his "magic murder bag" with him everywhere he goes. #21 and #24 feel left out by the changes, and distrust Killinger, especially when the "black guard" come in and get new uniforms, weapons, and (seemingly) better training. #24 eventually speaks out against Dr. Killinger during a meeting, saying he doesn't respect the "rules of supervillianry", and Monarch orders him taken away to a torture room. Instead Dr. Killinger requests a moment alone with him to talk, during which he somehow turns him a complete 180º. Back at the Venture Compound, Doctors Orpheus and Venture find the Oni leading them to a Venture Industries car. Brock, still unable to see the Oni, mockingly shrugs them both off and goes off to find the boys who are missing from their driving lesson. Dr. Venture tricks the Oni into the trunk of the car, but it takes control and drives it around, pulling Venture along, After a short time it stops and the doors open, inviting the doctors in. Brock and H.E.L.P.eR., searching for the boys and debating the merits of Led Zeppelin (who H.E.L.P.eR. dismisses as "jock rock"), come across the wristband communicators in a dumpster. Tossing away the debris, he finds the watches tied to an explosive with the message THE BOYS...ARE MINE... flashing across both and begins to realize who took them. Just before the dumpster explodes, Brock notes, "Myra's back." Brock is saved by H.E.L.P.eR. in the nick of time, and the two begin flying off. The boys wake up in a run down room in an unknown location, bound with rope on a dirty mattress. A sinister muttering in the next room turns out to be a crazed-looking, leather-clad, buxom woman, her lined and aged face in contrast to her physically fit form. She reveals that she is their mother: after graduating from the Office of Strategic Influence, she was assigned to protect Dr. Venture and began to fall for him, aggressively flirting with him. After saving his life during the showing of a new invention, she has sex with him in a car. Eventually, however, she grew too clingy and addled for his liking and was sent away. Enraged by being abandoned by him, she is also angry that he erased all memories of her from the boys and that they don't even remember their proper age (apparently confirming an earlier problem in the boys' ages noticed by Hank). She plots to take them both away from Venture Industries and be a happy family together. The Oni has meanwhile taken Doctors Orpheus and Venture to a motel to stay the night. After an accusation that Orpheus is gay and wishes to bed Dr. Venture the two make up and decide to rent a "skin flick" to pass the time. Meanwhile, Myra introduces her numerous cats to Hank and Dean as their "brothers and sisters," and tells the boys that the cats are hungry. Worried that the boys might also be hungry, Myra pushes her breasts to their (traumatized) faces in an apparent attempt to breast-feed them. #21 manages to convince the Black Guards to let him through to see #24 in his prison cell, who is happily reading porno and tells #21 that Dr. Killinger is actually a great guy. #21 swears he'll not fall for the tricks and tries to use silly string mock-ups of Spider-Man's web-shooters to take the magic murder bag, only to be taken away by #24 in his new Black Guard outfit. He manages to escape, eventually recruiting Dr. Girlfriend to help him infiltrate the Cocoon. She deftly gets through the laser alarm systems (which she installed) with able gymnastics, but #21's girth and lack of flexibility trips the first beam, alerting the Black Guards. Dr. Girlfriend easily takes them out and, leaving the hapless #21 behind, enters the lair. Inside, an exasperated Monarch reacts incredulously to Dr. Killinger's plans for a summit meeting with Dr. Venture in the spirit of detente and realpolitik. After a moment of alarm at Dr. Girlfriend's dropping from the ceiling, Dr. Killinger quickly calms the two down, opens his magic murder bag and produces a bouquet of flowers, which he hands to the Monarch so he can give them to Dr. Girlfriend. Dr. Killinger also produces the Monarch's journal for Dr. Girlfriend, which he states "has his love for you written on every page." He tells the two that he has locked them in, presumably to talk things over. Taking his bag and umbrella, he flies out a la Mary Poppins, and tells the duo to have hope for the future...only to get caught in the Cocoon's ceiling. Dr. Venture and Dr. Orpheus are woken up by the Oni (still in the car trunk) ramming the car against the wall of their room. When Dr. Orpheus goes to check out, the motel attendant turns out to be Myra. When Myra notices Dr. Venture in the car outside she proceeds to beat Dr. Orpheus senseless while Dr. Venture sits in the car listening to the radio oblivious. She quickly grabs the boys and gets into the car with a tied-up Dr. Venture, ready to drive off with them all. At that point Brock and H.E.L.P.eR. arrive on the scene, and she angrily runs Brock over. Brock quickly gets up and walks into the road so that Myra can see him in the rear view mirror. As Myra turns the car around to run him down again, Brock calmly positions himself so that with a quick leap back he smashes through the windscreen and into the driver's seat, squashing Myra and assuming control of the car. Brock and Venture tell the kids that the woman is Myra Brandish, formerly Powerkat on American Gladiators, who was put into an insane asylum once the show ended and she became obsessed with Dr. Venture. When Dean questions why they don't remember her Brock nearly mumbles they wouldn't due to their being clones (quickly trailing off with Dr. Venture before the word is fully said). When the boys keep asking questions, Dr. Venture finally admits that the two had sex ("OK...So I f*cked her! What of it!?"). The Oni, meanwhile, escapes from the trunk to join Dr. Killinger, who is flying overhead. As the Oni slips into the magic murder bag, Killinger says that while it failed to re-unite them, it managed to save the boys. "Compromise," he says, "is the essence of diplomacy, and diplomacy is the cornerstone of love." Killinger then flies off, singing "sweet love." Cultural references *The title of this episode references the title of Maya Angelou's 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. H.E.L.P.eR. apparently quotes Angelou (at some length) in the episode itself, and which Brock initially mistakes for a work by Shel Silverstein. *Dr. Henry Killinger is a cross between the diplomat Henry Kissinger and the magical nanny Mary Poppins. * The round table that The Monarch, Dr. Killinger, and his henchmen sit at is similar to the one in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Also, #24 and #21's phobia against the foreign Killinger is similar to George C. Scott's phobia against the Soviet ambassador in the film. *Myra quotes the tag-line from the movie The Bodyguard when discussing her relationship with Thaddeus: "Never let him out of your sight. Never let your guard down. Never fall in love", the opening verses to the Spandau Ballet song "True" when talking to the boys about her love for Dr. Venture; "So true, funny how it seems, always in time, but never in line for dreams" and "I bought a ticket to the world, but now I've come back again", and finally Darth Vader's line from The Empire Strikes Back "Search your feelings; you know it to be true" after the boys deny the claim that she is their mother, mirroring the scene in Empire where Luke denies Vader's claim that he is Luke's father. * #21 also makes two references to A New Hope. First when he tells Dr. Girlfriend that she is their only hope. Second when he quotes C-3PO in saying "Thank the maker" after farting. * The Black Guards bear a striking resemblance to "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero"-era Cobra Commander, Battle Android Troopers, Iron Grenadiers, or the third incarnation of the the Interrogator figure. * #21 yells "Semper fidelis tyrannosaurus" (Always faithful tyrant lizard) when he is being removed from Dr. Killinger's room. This is a hodge-podge of Semper fidelis (Always Faithful), the motto of the United States Marine Corps, and Sic semper tyrannis (Thus always to tyrants), the phrase John Wilkes Booth supposedly said just after shooting Abraham Lincoln. Killinger's translation, "Always faithful terrible lizard", mixes up the words "Tyrannosaurus" (which means "tyrant lizard") and "dinosaur" ("terrible lizard"). * Myra's costume bears a resemblance to that of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume from Batman Returns. Both are black vinyl with white stitches where the costume was hastily pieced together. Further parallels to Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman include her overall psychotic behavior, her shrill and unstable voice, her short blond hair, and the presence of several cats living with her. Towards the conclusion of the episode, Brock reveals to the boys that Myra used to be known as "Powerkat" on American Gladiators, an additional reference to her Catwoman-esque character. *The line "He knows nothing of honor or living by the sword!" is spoken by the Dracula character in the movie Blade: Trinity. * #24 mentions the fighting game Tekken 3. * The Led Zeppelin song that Brock and H.E.L.P.eR. argue about in the car, which apparently mentions Hobbits, is presumably either The Battle of Evermore, Over the Hills and Far Away, Ramble On, or possibly Misty Mountain Hop, all of which reference Hobbits or The Hobbit in some way. * The song that Dr. Venture listens to in the car is Mitre Storm by Jasper McVain. * After Brock lands on Myra, she groans, "I feel like Catherine the Great," referring to the historical myth that Catherine the Great of Russia was accidentally crushed to death during intercourse with a horse. * #21 shouts "Stay back, pod person!" in response to #24's acceptance of Dr. Killinger. This is a reference to The Body Snatchers and/or its various adaptations. Connections to other episodes *Myra claims that Hank and Dean were born 19 years ago, although they state that they are only 16. This is the second time their ages haven't matched up, as in "Hate Floats" Hank points out that his age (as told to him by Dr. Venture) doesn't match the age printed on his ID card. *H.E.L.P.eR.'s weapons system is noted as being off-line. A probable reference to his dismemberment in "Victor. Echo. November." * #24 seems to have gotten his car back from the prostitute that stole it in "Fallen Arches", as #21 is seen driving it. Trivia *This is Jackson Publick's favorite season 2 episode. *The famous Wilhelm scream can be heard during the raid at the beginning. *This episode illustrates that Doctor Girlfriend has exceptional fighting skills, at least against the Monarch / Dr. Killinger's elite Blackguards. However, as the less-than competent #24 was allowed to become one, their exact level of skill is perhaps questionable. *Dr. Girlfriend also seems able to store items in the brassiere of her Queen Etherea costume, despite it apparently being part of the sheer body-stocking. *Based on Dr. Ventures statement at the end of the episode, the boys are unaware that they are clones and that either some of their memories have been lost or they were not recorded (or were edited) prior to their restoration. It is also possible that many of the Myra events occurred during one or more of the Venture boys' many restorations when no new memories could be created. * The car that the boys are driving in the beginning of the episode bears a striking resemblance to a SAAB 96. * In the flashback when Myra is fighting the Monarch he is wearing a completely different costume than one worn previously, making his current costume at least the third incarnation. * If Myra is indeed the boys' biological mother, her tendency towards insanity might explain some of Hank's wild, nonsensical theories and ideas. There's also a physical resemblance, as Hank has her blonde hair and Dean her slightly upturned nose. * The license plate on Myra's car reads: PSSYKAT *One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the episode. For this episode the credit reads Kimson "Magic Murder Bag" Albert. Goofs *Dr. Orpheus's cat now has dark purple fur whereas she was black when first introduced in Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic! *When the figureskate wearing Henchman walks in he is wearing his wings, but when he kicks the dummy the wings are gone. *The bottle of Mercurochrome that Dr. Orpheus gives to Dr. Venture appears to be reverse threaded, as Dr. Venture turns the cap clockwise in order to open it. Category:The Venture Bros. episodes